Toastmasters

Yesterday, I gave my level 4 speech in Toastmasters. The objective of this level was “How to Say”.This speech had a great improvement in terms of my presentation. First and foremost I spoke to the time given. I spoke for 7 minutes and 28 seconds. As usual, my content was less so that I stick to the timing.The topic which I delivered was “Characters in Life”. I must really thank Pon.Rathnavel or in cyberspace called as Reaven. I took the liberty in using his name in my speech without his permission, because he is also one of the person I have met who is really a character. This speech is very different from previous speeches. This was a Humorous speech.

Evaluations of the speech - Positives:Body Language which added to the humour, Effective utilisation of Stage, Voice Modulation. Negatives: Clasped hands some times, Short conclusion.

To see the draft of my speech refer here. As usual my presentation was different when compared to the draft. This may be helpful if you want an overview on this speech. It really took a considerable time to frame the speech humorously and some effort on the delivery of the humour part. Overall there was a good response for the drama I did which created the humour and this will be a great learning for a better humourous speeches in future. This is my personal Goal sheet too.

During my preparation for speech at toastmasters, I was struggling to make the opening of the speech. Since the objective of the speech was to Organize, I worked on the transitions and a good opening, body and conclusions.

I stumbled on this article of Kathy Sierra on Better Beginnings. Though she is well known for the Head first Java Series, in her blog she gives very useful tips which we often overlook in our life. In her Better Beginnings post she has wonderfully explained on opening of speeches or articles. The post really helped me in organizing my speech.

Today, I gave my level 2 speech in Toastmasters. The objective of this level is to Organize the speech.Compared to my level 1 speech I felt more confident in delivering a speech. The topic which I delivered today was ‘Reveal your Identity in Web 2.0′.

I should thanks Gopal for helping me in forming the skeleton of the speech. My organization of the speech had the following skeleton.

                    Reveal your Identity in Web 2.0

1. Opening - With the Definition of Cyberspace by William Gibson

2. Lead to topic with a small explanation

3. Body

       a. Evolution of the Web 2.0

       b. Web 2.0 - A social phenomenon

       c. Examples and Statistics of Various Web 2.0 like

           Wikipeida, Blogging, Social Networking

4. Conclusion - Summarizing examples 

About my evaluation, the positive was my Voice modulation and transition in the thoughts. Things I need to improve were eye contact, Body Language and little more organization of the body.Today along with me a fellow Toastmaster also gave his level 2 speech. He also cleared it. Finally I got the Best Speaker Award today. You can have a look, at my initial draft of the speech here.

Today in Toastmasters club I was the Joke Master. Since this was my first session and the first role I am playing in Toastmasters, I was quite nervous. I prepared (cooked a joke and practiced the presentation twice in home yesterday. I have never felt so nervous for this, as we used crack jokes always from our sophomore days among our friends. Cracking a joke was not at all a big thing, but today it was different.

I had to deliver in the time limit given, and also I was on centre stage where all the people are watching warily at me. Finally I presented today, I was very happy when people really laughed for the joke when I completed it. I have posted the joke below , you can also enjoy the same

“Prank, you’re pretty popular!” says Frank. “I’m the most popular man in the world,” says Prank.

“Now Prank,” says Frank, you’re pretty popular but you’re not the most popular man in the world.”

“Oh yeah,” Prank replies “I’ll bet you a thousand dollars that I’m friends with anybody you can name!”

“That so?” answers Frank, “How about the President of the United States?”

“Let’s go!” says Prank.

The two fly to Washington and knock on the front door of the White House. The president answers “Prank! How are you doing? I haven’t seen you in ages!” The three go play a round of golf and then leave.

“That was luck!” says Frank, “Two thousand says your not friends with the Queen of England!”

“Let’s go!” says Prank.

The two fly to Buckingham Palace and, sure enough, are greeted by the Queen. ”Hello Prank my boy! What have you been up to these days?” They enter the palace and have some tea and leave.

Frustrated, Frank says, “Double or nothing, you don’t know the Pope!”

“Benny!” says Prank, “Let’s go!”

When they get to the Vatican, Prank instructs Frank to wait outside and Prank will come out on the balcony with his arm around the Pope. After a while, a crowd gathers to hear the Pope speak. And as told by Prank, when the Pope came out, Prank’s arm was wrapped around him. Prank looks down from the balcony and see’s Frank passed out on the ground. He rushes down and wakes him up.

“Frank! Frank! Wake up!” Frank opens his eyes and says, “Prank. You’re the most popular man in the world.”

“I told you that, Frank,” says Prank, “but you didn’t faint when I knew the President! You didn’t faint when I knew the Queen!”

“Well I was shocked that you knew the Pope,” says Frank. “But I just couldn’t take it when the guy next to me tapped me on the shoulder and said “Who’s that up there with Prank?”

Yesterday, after a very long time, I attended Toastmaster’s session. This session was really interesting, I enjoyed every moment there. This was a special session, each of us where provided with a jumble of 12 x 12 alphabets to find out the hidden words in 2 minutes. After the 2 minutes we need to speak for 2 minutes using the words we deciphered from the jumble. I found out around 5 words which were all fairy tale words like goblin, maple syrup, costumes, banking & World Series. I spoke about my own version of Harry Potter as the word Goblin reminded me of the Green Goblin who govern the Gringots Bank of World Series Harry Potter, well known for their weird costumes and maple syrup drinking habits (This is an one line game I played now: ).

This time I found Toastmasters very useful because of one reason. The first time I went with a mindset that Toastmasters club is also going to be yet another Rotaract. But this time my intentions were not like that, I really wanted to improve my communication skills. The expected was given at the right moment yesterday. This Toastmasters Club is yet another commendable initiative by TCS Maitree like Global Village.

I have joined the club today, though the membership cost was around two thousand for one year including my joining fee. I will get much more than that is my expectation. Money is not every thing, rightly pointed in this.